What Happened in Vegas…

“Step back.”

“Why?”

“I have to enter the code for the door.”

He stepped away and turned his back.

She entered the code, waited a moment to be sure all the laser sensors and alarms had disengaged, then pulled open the door. The moments without his stare blazing into her also allowed her time to roll her shoulders and regain her poise. She was no longer curious about why he wanted to see the jewel. She just wanted him gone.

He reminded her of a past she’d fought like crazy to forget. He tempted her. He made her think about twisted sheets and tangled limbs—a distraction she couldn’t afford.

She’d show him the gem, then hustle him out. He’d go back to chasing his pipe dreams, and she’d get back to double-checking inventory. His chaos and her order. The only way both of them would be happy.

After flipping on the lights, she walked into the small room. The walls were draped in black, lint-free fabric and the overhead spotlights simulated natural light, which showed flaws in lesser stones, but illuminated the brilliance of the superior ones. The glass display cabinets formed a U, inviting the viewer into the middle to goggle and sigh.

Gideon was right. She did bring VIP clients back here. She’d escorted five in the past week, two of whom specifically wanted to view the Veros emerald.

And though Gideon wasn’t a VIP—and she was wildly uncomfortable with him smack in the middle of her respectable new life—he would appreciate the stone as much as she did. He was one of the few people who’d actually care where it came from and what it represented.

“It’s in the corner,” she said—unnecessarily it seemed, since Gideon was already heading in that direction.

He said nothing for several moments, and Jacinda stayed behind him, anticipating he’d like to absorb the magnificent cut and clarity on his own. Even if he really had the money to bid for it, she knew she didn’t need to come up with a sales pitch. The gem’s deep greenish blue color and minimal flaws detectable by the naked eye were rare and set it apart from other emeralds in an obvious way, just as the infamous Hope diamond shined not clear like common diamonds, but with blue brilliance for the millions of tourists shuffling through the Smithsonian.

The only drawback had been the Veros gem’s setting. The staid gold-and-silver broach surrounding it crowded the light too much and didn’t highlight the emerald. After much wrangling and begging, she’d finally convinced the family that if they wanted top bids, they’d have to allow the auction house to remove the gem from the setting, so that the buyer could see the emerald from all sides and angles.

Now the stone lay unadorned on a minimal set of prongs, raised above a cushion of black cloth.

“It’s amazing,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Yes, it is.”

“I’ve seen pictures, but I never imagined…”

She smiled, understanding his awe. It reminded her that he loved beautiful things. Beautiful, expensive things. And though she’d had a decent face and a lush body when they’d first met, she’d been cheap. In appearance and profession. She’d changed all that. She used her brain instead of her body now—though she still had the lush body for someone who took the time to look beneath her conservative suits—but she still felt the tarnish of cheapness. Maybe she always would.

Shoving aside her insecurities, she said, “I have a loupe and tweezers if you’d like a closer look.”

“Thanks. I would.”

Rounding the counter, she retrieved the necessary tools, then entered another code, allowing her access to the cabinet containing the emerald. The auction house didn’t take chances with its inventory, and the emerald was one of its most valued.

She retrieved the tray containing the stone, then stepped back a bit, wanting to watch him work.

He used the tweezers and loupe like a pro, his hands looking strong and capable as the emerald shot sparks in a million directions, the stone seeming to glow from the inside like something from a mythological tale.

Oddly enough, she recalled their second night together. After they’d had amazing sex in the shower, they’d sat on the bed wearing bathrobes and eating lobster from room service. Gideon had suddenly jumped up, returning a few moments later with a black cloth, which he’d handed to her.

Inside the folded cloth was a ring, a four-karat, square-cut sapphire with diamonds surrounding it. An exquisite stone, its color deep and mysterious, like the Pacific Ocean, somehow cold and warm at the same time.

The ring had been lost, Gideon had explained, when a man had hocked it in anger after his wife divorced him. The couple had reunited recently, and the man wanted it back. He’d hired Gideon to find the ring, which he had.

But for the first time in his career, Gideon said he’d been tempted to keep a treasure. He’d slid the ring on her finger.

It’s the color of your eyes….

“I want it.”

The sapphire? But you gave it to your client. How—

She blinked away the past and tried to ground herself again in the present. The emerald. He was talking about the emerald. He wasn’t here to see her. He wasn’t here to give her gifts, or tease her with things she’d never have.

“I imagine you do,” she said coolly as she returned the emerald and its tray to the case and locked it. “Along with dozens of other people. Feel free to bid at the auction on Wednesday.”

“You don’t understand. It’s already mine.”

“Yours?” She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Be serious. Is this some Adventure-Man ploy? The emerald clearly belongs—” She stopped as he handed her a stack of photographs he’d drawn from his back pocket.

For the first time, she felt a tremor of unease—professional unease. The man may have her sweating the personal stuff, but she was confident in her job. Nothing shook her in that area.

Yet, while she’d been dreamily reliving the past, he was all business.

Rolling her shoulders, she shuffled through the pictures. They were in black and white. The first was a doozy, showing a young, beautiful woman wearing an obviously couture gown, long white gloves and a magnificent choker around her neck being presented to the King of England.

Okay, that was…unexpected.

Where had Gideon gotten these pictures? The library? The Internet?

The photos are yellowed and rough at the edges, not recently printed.

She shook away the disturbing thought, as well as the even more unsettling vision of them being pulled from a family album, or from a box in the back of somebody’s closet.

Fighting to keep her hands still, she shuffled through several more, which showed the same woman smiling and posing, dancing and bowing. The constant in all the pictures was the lovely gown and the amazing choker around her neck. The choker that featured a large, emerald-cut gem. Twenty-one karats, if Jacinda had any kind of decent eye.

And she did.

Still, the pictures were old black-and-whites. The stone in the choker could be glass. It could be any color. The pictures could be doctored. In the age of digital technology, anything was possible.

On the other hand…Jacinda was pretty sure she recognized the woman in the photos. Sophia Graystone. A high-society woman who’d been wild in her youth but who had eventually married and become one of the most respected philanthropists in the city. A close friend of Malle Callibro. In the director’s office, there was even a picture of them smoking cigars in a club, laughing as if the world existed to simply amuse them.

“It’s Sophia Graystone,” she said to Gideon, forcing disinterest into her voice. “So?”

“The emerald in the pictures is the same you see in the display case,” Gideon said.

“Oh, please. They’re black-and-white photos and—”

“It’s the same,” he insisted.

She said nothing.